


The Starship Javert:  Gargoyle in the Grotto

by vanillafluffy



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Star Trek Fusion, Creepy Fluff, Gen, Malcolm's nightmares, Mission Fic, Missions Gone Wrong, No Spoilers, Star Trek References, Star Trek: AOS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:00:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27523447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanillafluffy/pseuds/vanillafluffy
Summary: Malcolm is on an away team mission with Dani and JT, tracking a creature that tunnels through rock.(For the prompt, Prodigal Son, ensemble, Star Trek AU)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 8
Collections: Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2020





	The Starship Javert:  Gargoyle in the Grotto

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cornerofmadness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cornerofmadness/gifts).



Cue the theme music-- _”These are the voyages of--” The Starship_ Javert. Her ongoing mission, to fight crime in the Federation, to seek out answers to the mysteries they encounter, to boldly go where danger lurks….

Science Officer Commander Malcolm Bright scans the tunnel they've just beamed into with his tricorder. “That way,” he says quietly to the rest of the away team. “Emissions show that’s the most recent burrow.” 

Their red-shirted Security Officer goes first. Lieutenant JT Tarmel has his phaser in hand, moving forward with his habitual blend of caution and determination.

“You go next,” _Javert’s_ First Officer Dani Powell says to Bright. “I have your six.”

“The sides of the tunnel are hot.” JT cautions them.

Bright follows him into the next chamber, stepping gingerly through the opening. His tricorder flashes data on the heat signature. “I wonder if it could be Horta….”

Powell isn’t far behind. “Could be what?”

“A proscribed species previously encountered on Janus 6. They tunnel through rock. The larval form has a similarity to dilithium crystals. There was an attempt to mine the ‘eggs’ on Janus 6, whereupon one of the adult Horta that laid the ‘eggs’ proceeded to kill several miners in retaliation.”

“That’s probably why they’re proscribed,” JT contributes, pausing. 

“Anyway, because of the Prime Directive, the Federation has flagged Janus 6 as ‘no-go’.”

JT slows. There are two openings ahead, one smooth, the other a cavern of jagged rock teeth like a vast geode, spikes of clear proto-quartz streaked with deposits of rhodium, crystal bristling above and below all around the recess, glinting in the diffuse luminescence of the even-surfaced passageway they’re in. 

Malcolm edges past him. “It went that way,” he says confidently, gesturing to the smooth passage to their left. “The other is a natural cavern. Beautiful! A whole vault of rutilated proto-quartz--magnificent! It looks like the tunneler veered off to the left after it broke through the vault.”

“Would you keep your mind on whatever is drilling through this planet?” JT snaps back. “This isn’t a class field trip, you incurable egghead!”

“Watch it, James Tiberius Tarmel!” Powell warns him sharply, pulling rank on the irascible red shirt. “He’s here to do science! It’s your job to secure the party.” 

“Understood, Ms. Powell. Better let me go first, Bright.” He enters the left-hand tunnel which has widened to a chamber of smoothed walls. “Nothing as fancy as your proto-quartz--”

Bright joins him. “That’s odd. The tunnel ends here. It looks like it intersects with a grotto of the other cavern. I don't think our tunneler realized how big that deposit of proto-quartz is.” He’s scanning the small chamber they’ve entered. “There’s something here beside proto-quartz…the readings I’m getting from all these loose rocks…,it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen--and the walls are hot all the way around.” Not to mention, there haven't been any loose rocks in the tunnels they've been walking through, but there are quite a few in here....

“He’s off again.” JT shakes his head as he scans the second chamber. “I don’t like it. The cavern here is different, why? If it went into the other cavern, it would’ve wrecked those spears of quartz--would it? So, where did it go?”

“That’s a good point--” Bright says diplomatically. They’re pretty obvious questions, actually, but for a guy who didn’t minor in geophysics, it’s a fair deduction. The proto-quartz goes no sign of damage. The chamber, though warm as a sauna, shows no sign of life.

He falls silent at the sound of pebbles rolling across the smooth floor of the cavern. Spherical rocks are scattered around the chamber. Not big, anywhere from the size of marbles, all the way up to pool balls. Is that an anachronism, or is there a pool table in the holodeck? The small globes are trembling--is it the beginnings of a seismic event?--no, they’re rolling independently.

“There’s a pattern!” Bright scans the phenomenon, watches wavy lines corresponding with inaudible sound waves full the tricorder screen. “The frequency is familiar--”

“They’re--they’re trying to encircle us!” JT observes the spinning spheres with alarm.

“No--look!” Powell has been scanning the far side of the grotto. A few at a time, as they encounter each other, the spheres lock together. “Magnetic attraction?”

“It’s like an avalanche assembling itself!” Bright’s eyes are wide, anxious. His tricorder is flashing, “THANKS FOR PLAYING!” and an uncanny cackle emanates from the rocks themselves. it chills him. 

The spheres tumble and bounce wildly being drawn to the growing formation. 

“It’s been coring through rock--big enough for us to walk through--” JT says urgently, “It’s a helluva lot bigger than we are!”

Powell slaps her communicator badge. “Powell to transporter--three to beam up, stat!”

Bright hears the familiar silvery chime echo from the walls. His companions buzz away in a sparkle-shimmer and it’s just him and The Thing. He taps his badge repeatedly like any man in a hurry for an elevator. “Um, hello? Engineering? Please don’t leave me here!”

The rocks are clicking together, rattling like dice or old dry bones, changing shape…then the cracks melt into solid stone-- but it isn’t a statue…more like a gargoyle with a twisted face leering at him. It smiles at him. Stone has no feelings =--feels no pain, it will crush him without a second thought because that is its nature....

“My boy!” The man-shaped formation chuckles with malign mischief.

Malcolm screams. He sits bolt upright on the sofa just as someone loudly says, “Peleton!”

“Are you okay?” Gil asks him, thumbing the TV remote to ‘mute’. He’s relaxing in his favorite chair, latest issue of _Car and Driver_ on his lap.

“I can’t believe--did I nod off?” Malcolm rubs his face. “I was having the weirdest dream. I was with Dani and JT on an away team mission in this tunnel--”

“I’m not surprised,” Gil says, turning the volume back on. It’s an episode of _Star Trek: the Original Series_. “Tonight it’s ‘The Devil in the Dark’.”

“The one with the Horta!” Bright says triumphantly. “I knew it! I was Science Officer, and I told Dani I thought it might be a Horta making the tunnels we were in. We ended up in a dead end, and a whole bunch of rocks rolled together and turned into my dad--”

“Good job beaming yourself back here,” Gil’s good-natured quip and smile calm him. Isn’t that exactly what he did, in a way? He’s safe here.

One last thing occurs to him as Bright turns his attention to the familiar episode, a detail his subconscious threw at him amid the fray. “Hey, Gil==do you happen to know if JT’s parents were Trekkies?”

…


End file.
